


Eternity in an Hour

by Moebius



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Date Night, F/F, Fluff, Gardening, Plants, Researched the flora of Qo'nos, allergies in the 24th century?, pre-existing relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 00:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19779913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moebius/pseuds/Moebius
Summary: B'Elanna has never been one for gardening, but when Kes suggests a special date night, she can't say no.





	Eternity in an Hour

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the [sapphicstartrek](https://sapphicstartrek.tumblr.com/) 2019 fanwork exchange on tumblr, for my recipient who requested, among other things: "Kes/ B'elanna Torres, doing someting relaxing like gardening or chilling in pjs, sfw." 
> 
> For my recipient: B'Elanna is one of my favorite Star Trek characters, and I loved the opportunity to write her through Kes' eyes. I hope you like it!
> 
> I take some liberty with gardening and science and stuff, but it's all in the name of fluff.

At exactly 1900 hours, with a familiar whoosh, the doors of the airponics bay slid open. B’Elanna was precisely on time. Kes, who was tending to some new seedlings while she waited, smiled but didn’t turn around. “Hi.” 

“I hate plants.” 

“Nobody hates plants, B’Elanna.” 

“I do.”

Kes smiled again and turned back to the doors of the airponics bay, her tone playful. “Why? Do they make you sneeze?”

B’Elanna frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, refusing to admit that she suffered from something as human as allergies. Which was also, coincidentally, why she had never seen a doctor and been treated for them. A simple hypospray would help, but then it’d be on her _record_ and she couldn’t have that. Were there black market allergists? It was something she’d never even considered when she was Maquis, and she quietly chided herself for it. “No. They’re just... not very interesting. Klingons don’t have plants.”

“What?” Kes laughed. “Everyone has plants, B’Elanna. It’s how they get oxygen. Besides,” her voice became a bit softer, shyer, “ I looked it up. Qo’noS has a lot of plants. And so does Earth.” 

“You looked it up?” B’Elanna’s frown melted away to a smile, her eyes sparkling. “To impress me with your knowledge of Klingon plants? That’s very cute.”

Kes could feel the blush creeping up her cheeks. “Well, when I suggested airponics as a date, I saw your face and –” 

The engineer stopped her with a small kiss. “Sorry. I’m not good at… trying new things? But it’s very sweet of you to invite me here.”

“It’s my favorite place on the ship,” Kes explained. “You showed me yours, now I want to show you mine.”

B’Elanna’s favorite place on the ship was the junction of three Jefferies tubes where, for some reason Kes didn’t quite understand — acoustics, physics, architecture, harmonics — it was eerily silent. Kes hadn’t realized how loud a starship was until that moment, when B’Elanna leaned in and she could hear nothing else but the sound of her own heartbeat thrumming wildly against her ears. It had been their first kiss.

“Sweet,” B’Elanna repeated, but she pulled away from Kes and surveyed the pods. “So is this like a guided tour, or…?”  
“I thought we could garden together.” Before B’Elanna had the chance to object, she pointed to a small patch of empty soil. “I have some new plants I traded for on the last planet, and I picked one of them especially for you.”

“Is it a cactus?”

“Why would it be a cactus?”

B’Elanna shrugged. “Kind of prickly if you get close.”

“Oh.” It occurred to Kes that maybe B’Elanna had thought a little bit more about this than she let on. “I haven’t found that to be true.”

“Well, you’re an exception I guess.” 

Kes didn’t say anything. She didn’t consider herself particularly good at relationships. She’d only had the one before B’Elanna, and that had felt entirely different from this. Which made sense, but it also meant she didn’t feel like she knew what she was doing half the time. She’d invited B’Elanna here because Kes liked her — a lot — and wanted to share something she liked a lot with the person she liked a lot. 

“So?” B’Elanna nudged her gently with her hip. “What do we do now?”

Shaken from her thoughts, Kes gestured to some gloves and a trowel. “We dig.” 

Despite her initial reaction to the idea, B’Elanna took to gardening better than she would probably like to admit. Kes gently instructed her, and B’Elanna followed along easily. Along the way, Kes explained some of the science behind particular plants, which interested B’Elanna more than the philosophy behind gardening. Kes went through the basics of soil chemistry, why some plants got planted near each other and some not, and how she came in each morning to pollinate them, since there were no bees on board.

“You know, I could make you some small drones that would pollinate everything for you, so you wouldn’t have to come every morning.” B’Elanna gently pushed a mound of soil over the roots of a freshly planted vegetable. Eventually, it would approximate Terran snow peas. Kes had been particularly proud of finding that plant.

“What? Oh, it’s alright.” Kes shook her head. “It’s something I enjoy doing. It clears my mind for the day.”

For a moment, it looked like B’Elanna was going to press the point. “Well, it’ll be a fun project for me. And you can just use them on mornings when you’re busy or have something else you’d like to do. Like sleep in.” 

“Sleep in? I don’t really sleep in much. I bet you don’t either, you’ve probably never been late in your life.” 

B’Elanna laughed. “Only when I’m trying to prove a point.” 

“To whom?”

“To whomever thinks they can tell me to show up somewhere at a certain time.” 

Kes shook her head. B’Elanna was the Chief Engineer. She wasn’t just responsible for making sure her entire section of crew operated on strict timetables, but that the ship itself never got out of sync. But she’d toss it in the matter reclamator to stubbornly prove a point. That stubbornness, wild and fiery as it was, was part of what had drawn Kes to her in the first place. But she certainly didn’t understand it. “Thank you for being on time for our date.” 

B’Elanna blinked and furrowed her brows. Kes was sure she saw a blush start at the collar of her tunic, but she was so surprised by the idea of B’Elanna Torres, of all people, blushing, that she told herself she must have been seeing things. B’Elanna cleared her throat. “Well, I don’t mind being told some things by some people.” 

“I’m an exception?”

“Yeah, exactly.” B’Elanna’s smile was back. She gestured at the dirt. “So we planted everything, are we done now?”

“Not quite.” Kes took B’Elanna’s gloved hand in her own and pulled her to a dark corner of the bay, where the temperature was warmer and the humidity higher. B’Elanna raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Kes looked back at her. “You were right, I did want to impress you with my knowledge of Klingon flora. The ecological cycle there is fascinating, really. Bouncing extremely between hot and cold, it’s a miracle anything can grow. But it does! Life adapts.” 

“Okay… so…”

“So obviously, there’s nothing in this quadrant that’s exactly like what you’d find there, but. Do you remember that trading vessel that docked with us two weeks ago?”

B’Elanna nodded. 

Kes flipped a switch, and a deep red light flipped on. In the dirt was a spiny vine, bluish-black in color, stretching across the grey soil and coiling up the posts on either side of the pod and around… cacti. What looked like cacti, anyway. “Nopal, or as close as I could get. Prickly pears.”

“Wow.” 

“Really?” Kes beamed. “I was as surprised they could coexist, but they do.” 

“Okay, I’m impressed. I don’t know how our next date will top this.” She leaned in and pressed the ridges of her forehead gently against Kes. 

“Oh,” Kes responded, gloved fingers entwining with B’Elanna’s, “I’m sure you’ll find a way.”


End file.
